Man, it sure is great that American society has made such big strides toward gender equality, isn't it? Here we are, at a point where many claim, straight-faced, that women have equal chances to succeed at almost anything.
Um, yeah. About that.
Among chief executives of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James. We’re calling this ratio the Glass Ceiling Index, and an index value above one means that Jims, Bobs, Jacks and Bills — combined — outnumber the total number of women, including every women’s name, from Abby to Zara. Thus we score chief executive officers of large firms as having an index score of 4.0.
The disparity is so extreme that there are actually fewer women CEOs than CEOs named John. In politics, Democrats can be pleased that our congressional glass ceiling is nowhere near as thick as the Republicans', by this measure.
We may have come a long way, baby. But we've got a long way to go.